


In The Stars

by theemdash



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Abydos, Angst, F/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-02
Updated: 2006-04-02
Packaged: 2018-09-08 09:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8839699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theemdash/pseuds/theemdash
Summary: When Daniel stays behind on Abydos, Sha're teaches her husband many things: her language, her love, and her stars.   We're too far from Daniel's world for him to recognize the constellations, so I teach him the ones I know: the disc, to symbolize Ra in our night sky; the river, that lets us know when the dry season is approaching; the explorer, who I then name Daniel.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written for stargatefic100 - 034. Not Enough  
> Special thanks to janedavitt for betaing duties.

Daniel laughs into my dark hair, his breath at my throat. His arms, strong around me, draw me back against his chest.

He whispers against my neck, "This will do, won't it?"

He tugs me to the ground and I can barely breathe through my laughter. "The tent is right there."

He's already undressing us, pulling off our robes, baring our skin to the cool night sky. "It's so far away," Daniel says. "And look at the stars." He leans back on his haunches and stares up into the sky. The stars are reflected in his glasses; his eyes shine when he looks at me again.

I clutch his face and silence any further thoughts about the stars. He makes love to me for the first time on the sand just outside our tent. Afterwards we lie naked and stare up at the stars. We're too far from Daniel's world for him to recognize the constellations, so I teach him the ones I know: the disc, to symbolize Ra in our night sky; the river, that lets us know when the dry season is approaching; the explorer, who I then name Daniel.

He kisses me sweetly, both of us sated, and before I drift off to sleep, my head against his pale chest, he wraps us in his robe and softly promises, "You are first in my heart. Always."

* * *

He has been here for two months when we stop taking long walks at night. He tells me he is content to stay at home, in our tent, and just be in my presence. He pushes me for stories, forcing me to remember half-forgotten tales, and to question my friends, as often as possible, for all the details oral tradition will allow. Sometimes I sing.

He rarely speaks of his world, and when he does he tells me of the differences: the tall glass buildings, the mechanical transportation, the feeling of isolation. He rubs my belly and says, "It's not like having a family."

It surprises me when one night after dinner he pulls me to my feet and out the door. We walk out into the night, staying close to the tent. Daniel finds a few constellations I've taught him and makes up a few of his own.

"The Stargate," he jokes, pointing out five bright stars. "The Colonel," he says to another batch.

I see the arrangement of stars before he does and bite my lip. I'm not sure that I want him to see them—that I want to put this thought in his head. But I tell Daniel everything.

I point to the stars, making sure his line of sight is aligned with my fingers. I trace the symbol I've seen on the cartouche.

"Home," he whispers.

I lean against him heavily, my head resting on his shoulder. His arm presses against the small of my back, his fingers twitching at my hip.

"This is home, now," he says. He kisses my forehead. "You are home." He kisses me again.

I smile slightly, not quite believing. The stars know so much more than we do.

I point to the horizon. "The Explorer is setting."

He nods against me. "That's right, because he doesn't need to search any more."

* * *

Daniel sometimes forgets how to pronounce words in Abydonian and it causes some amusement with my brother. Skaara holds his fingers to his eyes the way he saw Colonel O'Neill imitate Daniel and speaks half sentences like a child. I quiet him, and bat him away, but I know he is only teasing. Skaara asks Daniel to teach him English before I've even considered it.

It's been long enough that thinking of his world no longer stings, but Daniel is hesitant to begin the lessons. When he forgets an entire sentence and angrily blurts the words in his language, he relents. Soon it becomes enjoyable, and he smiles softly at our progress.

We practice at meal times asking, "Please pass the water" and saying, "I'm full." Daniel teaches us about expressions and that his language is often metaphoric. Skaara wants to learn the words Colonel O'Neill spoke, "cool" and "dweeb," but Daniel insists that those words are slang and not as important. I read between the lines and understand that he just doesn't want to think about Colonel O'Neill.

"You're getting tanned," I tell him in English. I rub his arms, pushing back his robes. "All the way up." I slip into Abydonian again because I haven't learned the words. "Have you been outside naked?"

He laughs and says six words in English. "Naked," he tells me so I understand. "No."

"Then why are you turning brown all over?" I peek up the sleeve of his robe and kiss the inside of his elbow.

He tickles under my chin, tilting my head so that my eyes look up into his deep blue ones.

"Because someone keeps pulling me behind tents and walls to take pleasure with her husband."

I smirk, turn, and swing my hips as I walk away. "I wonder why a woman would do a thing such as that."

He grabs me around the waist, his hands settling over my hips. "You wonder, do you?" He presses his nose against my neck and I barely suppress a gasp.

Skaara calls from outside and enters, nearly tripping over himself. "Daniel! What we found! You have to see! It's cool!" He leaves the flap open, one thumb hitched behind him, another gesture he leaned from Colonel O'Neill.

I start to scold my brother, to tell him Daniel is busy, but Daniel tilts my head again and presses a soft kiss to my lips.

"It will keep," he says. "I'll be back soon."

Daniel slips out just ahead of Skaara, turning momentarily to flash me a smile as bright as the stars.

I feel cold, alone with the remains of the evening meal. I wasn't invited to join them, but I could. Something inside me keeps my feet planted, and I wonder if Daniel ever feels like an alien.

* * *

He startles me when he enters our tent. He's speaking quickly in his language, forgetting that I am still sometimes slow. He has dirt on his face, and I stand to brush it off. Daniel smiles at me, presses his warm lips against my own, and for a few seconds settles.

He has come in covered in dirt every night for the past few months, and I know it's nearing time. His skin is paling again; his toils are not outside. He's in the cartouche room, the pyramid, and he's still itching to explore.

My hands touch his shoulders, but he pulls away and starts speaking again, this time words I can understand.

"There are thousands, Sha're, _thousands_. Do you have any idea what that means?"

I don't, but I know that I don't have to reply.

"There could be Stargates just, just, just _everywhere_." He winds his wrists, gesturing to the ceiling and the stars beyond, to the other planets he dreams of, and the ones I have nightmares about.

"Sha're, just imagine the worlds that are out there. So many cultures." He longs for these worlds the way he once longed for me. He has to explore landscapes because my body is not enough of an enigma: it is too easily mapped; it is too easily charted; it is no longer a mystery. 

"They don't know about the other places, do they? They only had the cartouche for Abydos. Jack won't know how to get to the other worlds." He balls his fists and strikes his thigh. "They don't know what they're missing." 

I take his face in my hands and force his lips open with my tongue. His hands fumble at my shoulders, pushing as I press against him and continue kissing his skin as I drag him to me.

He finally breaks my hold, separating us, both of us panting.

"Sha're, what's the matter with you?" 

His passion is for worlds, for the unexplored.

"You don't know what you're missing," I bite in English.

I go to bed angry. He leaves the tent, spending the night elsewhere. It is not the first time we have slept apart, but it is the first time I have wanted him gone.

In the morning he brings me a fistful of desert flowers and a poem he remembers from his old world. I kiss him, forgive him, and welcome him back to our bed. But now I know. 

Daniel is still the explorer: his feet are on Abydos, but he is already in the stars.


End file.
